CHINESE HERBS AND TEETOTAL HAMSTERS

Two active ingredients from the root of the kudzu vine, Pueraria lobata, which has been used by traditional Chinese healers since 200 BC to treat alcohol abuse, have been identified and tested in animals by Ming-Wing Keung and Bert Vallee of Harvard Medical School. The results of the study have been published in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers used Syrian golden hamsters as a model, an unusual species which, given the opportunity, will drink huge quantities of alcohol - the equivalent to a human drinking a case of wine a day. However, the hamsters are not affected by this remarkable rate of consumption; they do not stagger about or show any of the other characteristics of being drunk.

Male hamsters were injected with an extract of the root or one of two previously-isolated active ingredients, daidzin and daidzein. After treating the hamsters, Drs Keung and Vallee gave them a choice between tap water and water spiked with 15% ethanol. In all cases, the treated hamsters showed an aversion to the spiked water and drank less than 50% of the amount of spiked water than controls. The researchers are now trying to discover by what mechanism the active ingredients suppress the desire for alcohol.